Observing Art’s Metaphors Through Nature: Aya Eliav’s “Waymarks” (Avane Derech”) Define an Interval on the Timeline of Life

Aya Eliav's work evokes elements of nature that could be situated in the nebulous limits between figurative and abstract, where lines and volumes establish a dialogue with forms that seem to represent lost landscapes, dry trees, and detached roots. She uses observation in nature as a metaphor to individual or collective identity and memory, capturing the represented object submerged in shadows.

Eliav graduated in visual communication at the Academy of Fine Arts “Bezalel” and at the Academy of Fine Arts of Rome.  Since 2005 she works as an independent artist, as a multimedia artist exhibiting worldwide solo and group exhibitions.  Eliav’s work has been featured from Israel, London, and Tawain, to the National Museum of Art in Beijing, China, and the Optica Festival in Madrid.

She spent time at the Art Ventures residency program in Napa creating influential art and sculptures that are now on display at the gallery.  Eliav added “Coming here to Napa Valley to work on my own show had distracted me from my everyday life. It was another temporary relocation with which I had to deal: working in a studio which is not mine, in an environment I am not familiar with, speaking a different language, away from my habits, from my family.  Working away from “Home” forced me once again to start a new process of observation, through which I hoped to find a place of comfort in a foreign place.”

“The exhibition “Waymarks” (“Avane Derech”) is a break. It is an interval on the timeline of life, trying to interpret my surroundings by finding the right codes that would help me to describe and to get closer to the land, to nature, to get to know them, to appropriate them by observing them, and to let myself finally feel at home.”

From March 15th until April 30th, her work is being displayed at Art Ventures Gallery.